“There was a, um, a fire, and my apartment building burned down.” A stifled snort.
And sadly, with each sentence I spewed, I could hear the ridiculousness of the words and how nuts my laughing made me sound. Which, of course, struck me as more and more hilarious and I lost all control.
“It wasn’t my fault. I was being careful.” I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “But that possum came out of nowhere and knocked over the bucket.”
I had to pause to wipe at my tears of laugher.
I was definitely not getting the job.
At the next interview, I accidentally mentioned the Tribune and then tried to backtrack and say I hadn’t worked there.
“Wait.” The very nice woman narrowed her eyes and said, “You worked at the Chicago Tribune? How come you didn’t put that on your résumé?”
“Oh, I, um, I didn’t really work there.” I smiled and my brain short-circuited and I actually said the words “I was just kidding.”
Side note: If you ever land an internship at a major newspaper, never engage in a conversation with your coworker about their vibrator, even if said coworker was the one to bring it up and you were just being polite. As it turns out, if someone in the lunchroom overhears and goes to HR, they will fire you both, regardless of who owns Purple Thunder.
But I digress.
Regardless, I was killing myself with my ability to speak. If I could just get a job, I knew I’d make any employer happy. Because I was a good writer. I could proficiently communicate almost anything on paper.
But I had to somehow get through face-to-face meetings first.
At the next interview, I tripped over a chair and reflexively grunted out a semi-loud fuck me as it happened. But the two interviews that followed actually went fairly well. I didn’t get a callback, and I didn’t become buddies with the interviewers, but the fact that I didn’t destroy my own chances was a good sign, right?
The only good thing to occur during that series of unfortunate events was the daily communication I exchanged with the stranger. He’d sent a funny butt-dial text the night after my erroneous Starbucks message, and since then we’d been texting every night. Nothing important, just pointless, idiotic conversations about nothing.
The night before was no exception.
Me: What do you think the first guy to ever milk a cow was thinking?
Mr. Wrong Number: Come again?
Me: Ew, I doubt it was that. But was he just super curious, like I wonder what this thing does? Or did he see a calf nursing and he was all DUDE MY TURN?
I’d pictured him shirtless and leaning back against his headboard, smiling as he texted back, but I knew all the while it was pure fantasy that my anonymous bestie would be ripped.
Mr. Wrong Number: Maybe it was a bro thing, where two guys dared each other to touch the teat and then—boom—out squirts the milk.
Me: Touch the Teat. Band name—called it.
Mr. Wrong Number: It’s all yours.
Me: Am I interrupting something, btw, with my cow-teat inquiry?
Mr. Wrong Number: Nope. Just lying in bed, wide-awake.
Me: Please don’t go creeper on me now.
Mr. Wrong Number: What? I’m not a creep. I’m just lying in bed, naked, practicing my rope-tying skills while listening to Robin Thicke.
I shook my head and rolled over on the air mattress.
Me: Nausea-inducing level of creep right there.
Mr. Wrong Number: Which was the problem? The rope or the nudity? Or the Thicke?
Me: The combination. Brings to mind all the distasteful options of what one could be tying. While Thicke-ing it up.
Mr. Wrong Number: I shall restrain myself.
Me: I see what you did there.
Mr. Wrong Number: Is there a reason why the teat question is in play, btw?
Me: I can’t sleep, so sometimes instead of counting sheep I start considering the bizarre questions that my brain is constantly churning up.
Mr. Wrong Number: The things you wonder about are batshit crazy.
Me: Like I don’t already know that.
But today, on the last interview, the clouds parted and things went really well. Glenda, the editor at the Times, was super friendly and we actually connected. I was behaving like a normal human adult and she was really funny, and it couldn’t have gone better.
Until.
She said, “What we’re looking for with this parenting columnist is someone who can add a real voice to the section. A writer who can tackle parenting topics but still makes readers laugh—or cry—with their very distinct point of view.”
I smiled and nodded, but my brain was scrambling. Parenting? What in the literal hell? I’d applied to be an entertainment blogger, not a parenting columnist. I’d seen the post for the parenting position, but I didn’t apply for it because—news flash—I wasn’t a parent. Like, the idea of squeezing out an entire human and being the person solely responsible for their survival had literally given me nightmares.